


Deathless

by sunaddicted



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Anatomy, Autopsies, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Body Horror, Eye Trauma, Gore, Hallucinations, Happy Ending, Horror, Injury, M/M, Major Character Injury, Medical Inaccuracies, No Sex, No Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-16 00:38:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18510382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunaddicted/pseuds/sunaddicted
Summary: It's a nightmare.It's an hallucination.It can't be anything else.





	Deathless

**Author's Note:**

> IMPORTANT NOTE: hallucination!Oswald performs an autopsy on himself - that doesn't qualify as self harm in my books and that's why I haven't tagged it but it's the core of the fic so, take care of yourself. 
> 
> This fic is marked as E because the gore is very explicit - no porn here. 
> 
> There probably are anatomical inaccuracies in this: I took one semester of general anatomy five years ago, things are fuzzy.

_Deathless_

Edward wakes up and Oswald is sitting in front of him, holding up a hand mirror to watch himself as he expertly wields a scalpel in movements so familiar that Edward can perform them with his eyes closed - which means he can focus on Oswald's eye, crudely stitched closed over what seems to be an empty socket. 

It's a nightmare.

It's an hallucination.

It can't be anything else.

With how frequently Edward has been visited by his old friend's ghost, he has learnt how to discern the real from the unreal - to see the mark of his own mind over Oswald's image: his freckles are starker against his paler skin, inviting the lilac spectres of his marks; his neck is longer and leaner, throat begging for his hands to close around it and squeeze; his hair isn't styled but still silky, a perfect tool to yank the other closer and plunder his mouth.

Edward feels the first flickerings of arousal tighten his belly, he can feel it like a hand yanking at his entrails and crudely knotting them together.

"Do you like what you see, Ed?"

He's breathless as his eyes snap back on Oswald's work: the twin forks of the surgical Y have been completed and weighted down by gravity, livid patches of flesh droop and gift him with a peek of Oswald's ribcage, glistening white amidst the reds and pinks of his insides "You have a very... steady hand"

"Thanks" he grins, tilting his head to the side as if to better admire his work "I figured it couldn't be harder than drawing a perfectly straight winged eyeliner"

Edward has no idea about what that means - it has to do with make-up, maybe: he never paid much attention to such things beyond the sticky marks of lipstick that Miss Kringle and Isabella had left on his skin and the cloudy smudges of black on Oswald's pillowcases.

He has plenty of ideas about autopsies, though.

He knows intimately what's going to happen next: a drop of blood has welled under the steady pressure of the bisturi sharp point.

Edward wonders if Oswald needs encouragement or if he just wants to hear him beg to go on - or maybe that moment of stall is the proof of his own mind trying to protect him from the memory of yet another traumatizing hallucination.

Does he really want to see the man he loves open himself up, guts spilling on the sheets like a slick tangle of snakes? Does he really want his fingers to follow the ghostly trails of those incisions the next time he makes love to him? Does he really want that to be one of the memories he has of Oswald, in case he passes away?

Edward doesn't know but the answers to those questions apparently didn't matter anyway because Oswald has tilted the hand mirror once again, angling it towards his naked and vulnerable belly - taking a measure of himself as he tightens his grip around the bisturi, readying himself for a straight and clean cut. Oswald is exuding confidence and competence, there isn't an hint of fear in his wrists nor doubt in that lone eye that he had left: he knows he has the skill necessary to do the job and he doesn't feel pressured into hurrying, taking all the time he needs to steady his hand. 

An artist at work.

Edward's breathing pattern speeds up, he's lightheaded and on the verging of passing out - he doesn't know whether because of horror or arousal.

Maybe it's an unhealthy mix of both.

He just hopes he doesn't lose consciousness before Oswald is done: he doesn't want to miss even a frame of this nightmare, no matter that it isn't going to be as realistic and true as he would hope it to be - afterall, he's never seen Oswald's insides himself. What he's going to see is a mishmash of textbook entrails and organs ruined by what Edward knows to be his lover's vices: shadowed lungs, a swollen liver, a distended stomach...

Oswald's flesh parts and droops, steadily revealing his ribcage; the bones show the wear and tear of a hard life - of blows and old cracks, of badly wrapped up injuries that hadn't been given the time to properly settle before he threw himself headfirst in the next scheme.

It isn't only the flesh of Oswald's middle that keeps his organs inside: they are kept at bay by his ribcage; they are nestled in their coelomic cavities; they are anchored by mesenteries. 

Still, his intestines spill out a little - there's no dripping besides a little of interstitial fluid and, most importantly, no smell: Oswald hasn't pierced anything, an ultimate testament to how talented his hand is. It wouldn't have taken much, just a little more pressure - a little distraction.

"What do you think?"

Too many things to put into words in a coherent manner. Edward swallows down against the unidentified lump in his throat, Adam's apple bobbing with the effort "You're..." beautiful, stunning, breathtaking "Are you dead?"

"How would I know? I'm a byproduct of your imagination"

"I usually hallucinate you only when you're dead"

"Only when you think I'm dead"

It's an important distinction: the last time, Oswald hadn't really been dead - Edward just hadn't known he lived, hidden deep somewhere in the city, making allies and building connections, engineering his own survival like he only knows how to. 

Oswald puts the hand mirror down and, for the first time since the other man has appeared, Edward actually looks at it; the frame is wood, gilded with what he suspects to be real gold, and the reflecting surface is spotted brown, probably where the silver lining has been eaten away by time. It's a ridiculous accessory and wasn't it for its evidently high quality, Edward would have attributed its property to Gertrude Kapelput: even if he had never met her, going by Oswald's tales alone, the mirror looked like something she would have owned - or at least would have liked to own. 

"So, not even open up bodies hold your attention for long"

"I'm sorry" Edward feels strangely ashamed: Oswald has laid himself bare for him, the least he could do is watch. But there's a part of him that is terrified the other man will start rotting under his very eyes and that's definitely an image he doesn't want floating around his subconscious in the future "I was thinking"

"You know, you just need to open your eyes"

"What if you're dead?"

Oswald shrugs and his organs start sliding a little forward with a wet, squelching sound "It's Gotham: bury me or bring me back"

He's right - nobody really stays dead in their hellhole of a city: it gives Edward the strength to force the hallucination to dissipate and he opens his eyes to a crumbling roof, stained with rust and mould; it's not familiar but he knows exactly where he is, resting in one of the rooms of the makeshift hospital Gordon and the other refugees had managed to build in Haven. A few rooms from there, in the makeshift ICU, Oswald is recuperating from an emergency operation to his eye - which he might even have managed to retain, although with a far worse sight than before.

He just needs to sit up and go visit his lover, to face reality before taking refuge in his hallucinations unlike he did the last time he thought Oswald was dead.

So Edward stands up and his feet carry him to the doorway of a room he's not sure he's allowed into - to the end of a pristine bed.

"Ed"

And to a smile that Edward can't help answering to, despite the worry curled in the pit of his stomach "Oswald, hi"

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: one of my dreams was to be a medical examiner (I'm a weirdo) but I honestly didn't have the will to stay in uni 10 years to graduate in order to be able to work.


End file.
